Alfred Hitchcock didn't start in the film industry as a director, of course, but worked his way up to that position. For Director Graham Cutts' film
Woman to Woman (1923)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015508/ Hitchcock performed many duties, including that of screenwriter.
There's several curious articles (ads, really) about a contest that at least one theater ran in which moviegoers were invited to write alternate endings for Woman to Woman. The best three would receive prizes for their submissions, and supposedly their alternate endings would even be provided to the film distributor for consideration.
Some months ago the powerful motion picture film "Woman to Woman", while in the process of perfection, had several endings submitted. The producers, after studying various endings, decided on the one that appears on the screen. The Selznick Moving Picture Corporation, which has spent years and large amounts in the motion picture world invites the wisdom of every woman in Hartford and vicinity in search of a still better ending.
"Woman to Woman" will be shown the entire week of March 9. The management, in order that the women of Hartford, may be compensated for writing their views on the picture's ending, announces prizes. The contest is open to every woman, inasmuch as the picture deals principally with their sex. After witnessing the picture and carefully studying the ending an essay should be written and submitted to the manager of the Palace Theater. The essay should say whether the ending now shown in the picture is most suitable, or, if not, what ending would be better.
The producers realize that no two human minds run in the same channel. The best of the essays will be forwarded to the Selznick Moving Picture Corporation for its approval in the making of other films of this nature. Time and time again public opinion has led producers to make more perfect pictures.
The following prizes will be awarded for the essays submitted: First prize, a season ticket with a cash value of more than $25 in admission fees; second prize, a six-months' pass, with a cash value of $15 in admission fees; third prize, a three-months' pass, with a value of $7 in admission fees; fourth prize, fifty passes good at any time.
In the "Sunday Courant" of a later date announcement will be made of the winners of the essay contest. The rules are simple and every woman can enter. The management at the Palace Theater wants to go on record as displaying pictures that will have the approval of the public. When better pictures are made the Palace Theater will be the first to show them.
Betty Compson, the star, is well known to every motion picturegoer and has a well selected role.
"Woman to Woman." Hartford Courant. March 7, 1924: 10.
In addition to describing the contest the newspaper items claimed that the production company had considered several different endings for the film while making it. A March 11, 1924 follow-up stated "For this picture the scenario writer submitted several endings, each believed to be suitable." That writer could very well have been Alfred Hitchcock, though the truth of the claim can't be taken for granted.
Woman to Woman had been based on a play and novel; the film excluded the third part of the novel. It also appears there had been alternate versions of the film due to different censorship boards' objections in different markets. More on those differences in the future, but for now to return to the idea of a prize contest involving the submission of alternate endings to a film.
A similar contest was run with respect to a film Hitchcock himself directed, The 39 Steps. In the last post here, "But is not this a Scotch marriage?", it was noted that Hitchcock had told Charles Thomas Samuels that he'd shot an alternate ending for that film. A fictionization of the film in Screen Romances used a close variation on that alternate ending. Unlike the Woman to Woman contest, The 39 Steps contest didn't mention that the filmmakers had considered other endings when inviting readers to submit an alternate ending.
Screen Romances. November 1935. 43.
Screen Romances' fictionization of the ending didn't run until the December issue, which indicated the contest winners would be identified in the January 1936 issue. The cost of an issue of the magazine was twenty-five cents, about the same as what movie tickets were at the time. Someone interested in the fictionization and contest would likely have also been motivated to see the movie at least once. Thereby they would have spent at least a dollar rather than just the twenty-five cents of someone who only went to the theater.
It would be interesting to know more about the relationship of fan magazines to the film industry. Did film companies pay magazines to turn their films into short stories, or did magazines pay the film companies for the right to do so? Or was there no deal between the two, the film companies permitting unauthorized adaptions of their films because it served as free advertising for them?
